Rue von Schroeder
Name: Rue Hope von Schroeder Gender: Female Age: 18 Grade: 12 School: Saint Editha Academy Hobbies and Interests: Computers and programming, golf, jogging, drinking Appearance: '''Rue is a very tall girl, standing at 6’ 1” and weighing 176 pounds. Her long legs make up most of her height. She has a fit figure, with toned legs. She has a fairly large bust, which she is sensitive about and tries not to draw attention to with her clothing. Rue is Caucasian and has a light tan from her time spent outside. She has straight, dark red hair which falls nearly to her waist and oval-shaped green eyes. She has a straight, thin nose and an average-sized mouth. Her face is rectangular, and the only thing that she does not like about it is her wide forehead. Rue pays particular attention to caring for her hair, as she is very proud of it and has kept it long for most of her life; unless she is exercising, she prefers to wear it loose with her bangs pinned to the side to cover her forehead. Rue dresses in neutral and earthy colors most of the time, favoring green and brown for the way they complement her hair and complexion. She tries to draw attention to her legs and away from her chest ever since her bust size began garnering unwanted attention during puberty. She prefers conservatively-cut sweaters or blouses and form-fitting jeans or skirts which show off her legs without being immodest. She usually wears flats or comfortable boots, and will often accessorize with various scarves. She always wears makeup when out in public, typically using foundation and concealer to keep her complexion smooth, and eyeliner and mascara to emphasize her eyes. She prefers simple and understated jewelry. At school, she wears the traditional girls’ uniform, as she finds the skirt more comfortable and flattering than slacks. She always makes sure that her clothes are neat and wrinkle-free, though she has on occasion gotten in trouble for violating the dress code by wearing one of her favored scarves instead of the uniform tie. The day she was abducted was one such time, and she is wearing a green and white striped knit scarf in place of her tie. She had accessorized with her favorite pearl stud earrings. '''Biography: Rue was born on August 18, 2007, twenty minutes before her twin brother Rian. The von Schroeders have lived in Bellington for a few generations, following a relocation from Germany in the early years of World War II. The twins were born into apparent wealth; their father, Anton, was a partner in a successful technology firm and their mother, Vanessa, had received a sizable inheritance after her parents passed away prior to the twins’ birth. In truth, however, the family finances had been strained for quite some time thanks to their parents’ chronic overspending. Both Anton and Vanessa were quite young and had enjoyed monetary privilege their entire lives, and neither was very savvy about managing money. Anton’s high-paying position was as much a result of nepotism as it was his own business skill, as the CEO had known Anton's father prior to his death and had initially taken Anton on in order to jumpstart his career. While Vanessa had a college education, she had married Anton right out of school and never sought out a job. With the addition of two children to care for, it was not long before the von Schroeders found themselves in real financial trouble. Anton and Vanessa kept their money troubles from their children as much as possible. Rue and Rian were doted on by both parents, though especially so by their father. Rue in particular was very much a daddy’s girl throughout her childhood, seeking out his praise and encouragement even more so than the material goods that he lavished on his family. Rue and Rian also always had a very positive relationship, with little competition for their parents’ affection between them. Thus, while Anton grew increasingly stressed by work and his dwindling bank accounts and Vanessa grew increasingly emotionally dependent on him, the twins had a happy early childhood, blissfully ignorant of their parents’ troubles. One of Rue’s earliest bids to please her father was her developing interest in computers and technology, thinking that his job must heavily involve technical knowledge. Though Anton did point out to her that he was not the one who developed or built the computers and other devices that the company sold, he encouraged her in her interests and even put forth the effort to become more tech savvy himself so that they could bond over computing and programming. Rue maintained her interest in computers throughout her childhood, and became known as something of a tech guru among her peers once she reached school. If someone needed to fix a minor problem with their phone or computer, or to install a small modification or jailbreak something, Rue was the one to go to. Rue enjoyed a decent amount of popularity in school from the very beginning. She was pretty, she had an ostensibly wealthy family, and she socialized with ease, though her serious nature sometimes made her open to classmates messing with her when she took lighthearted things at face value. Additionally, she always had Rian’s company even when she wasn’t socializing, so she never became desperate for companionship. Rue achieved decent grades without trying too hard and was routinely in the middle of the pack of her classmates where academic achievement was concerned. Her teachers and parents both pushed her to apply herself more, telling her that she could be near the top of the class if she did so, but Rue was content with where she was. The twins’ lives continued in a comfortable pattern for several years, but the cracks were beginning to show as they approached secondary school. There was growing strain between Vanessa and Anton as Vanessa grew increasingly unable to cope with her anxiety regarding the family’s financial situation, and Anton got more fed up with her and more desperate salvage their situation. They had begun having frequent arguments regarding what they should do, which their children quickly noticed. Rue and Rian put the pieces together themselves well enough, and when they approached their father to ask him about the monetary troubles he did admit that they were struggling, though he didn’t tell them how dire things were getting and promised that they would be fixed soon. There was an anxious air in the von Schroeder home for several months afterwards, and Rue felt especially shaken; she idolized her father, and hearing him admit that he was in a situation that might overwhelm him was very upsetting to her. She began spending more time alone in her room at home, visiting friends less frequently than she used to and sometimes blowing them off at school. She inevitably returned to her normal outgoing self after a while, but some of her friendships suffered during this time, and she grew used to spending more time with only Rian and her computer for company. When pushed to spend more time outdoors, she took up jogging around the family estate, preferring the solitary exercise of running over sports or games which would require her to engage other people when she wasn’t feeling social. Rian provided a lot of emotional support and stability for Rue, though he once drew her ire by comparing her to their mother and himself to their father as far as temperaments went; as the years went on and the twins were better able to recognize such things, they had come to a private agreement that their mother wasn’t someone who could make it on her own. Rue resented the implication that she was as emotionally fragile as she felt their mother was, and she strove to prove that she could be self-sufficient by working harder in school and on her own programming projects. When the twins were thirteen, the financial struggle seemed to be sorted out. Anton slowly but surely was spending more time at home and though he still seemed stressed, he also seemed optimistic. He returned to his old practice of lavishing the family with gifts when the mood struck him, and he made a proposal which took his wife and children by surprise: opening up parts of their large family estate for rent, allowing people who had been displaced from their homes due to American military action on British soil to live there. Vanessa was initially strongly opposed, not wanting strangers to live in her home, but Anton seemed set on the idea. He argued that it would not only bolster their family finances, but that it would be a humanitarian thing to do, and pointed out that the family of four and their home employees didn’t make use of the entire building and grounds in their day to day living. Rue and Rian were excited by the prospect; they weren’t ignorant of the state of military action regarding the United States, but their personal lives had rarely been affected by it in ways that they hadn’t grown up used to. They felt that helping people who hadn’t been as fortunate was a kind thing to do, and they weren’t at all opposed to the possibility of having more company around the family estate. Vanessa finally relented to her family, though she wasn’t happy about the decision, and Anton made the necessary preparations to fix up designated rooms for rent. They quickly received a handful of tenants, mostly older people in the area whose homes had been damaged by bombing raids and who had no nearby family with whom to live. The twins were somewhat disappointed that nobody their age moved in, but did their best to be friendly and welcoming to their tenants. They did not and still do not have any particularly close relationships with the people living in their home, but relations are good and to the present day the twins are willing to help out and run errands for their tenants when necessary. Things went smoothly for the von Schroeders for another year and a half. The family finances seemed to be stabilized thanks to profit at Anton’s work and the extra income brought by the rent they were now collecting, and the twins were adjusting well to their first year of secondary school. They had each joined a sports team of their choice, Rue taking up golf and Rian soccer. Rue preferred golf over team sports, as it was not too rigorous for her to keep up with others, and she felt that other sports would require too much reliance on other people in order to perform well. Rue began to repair some of her old friendships and formed a few new ones as well with her fellow golfers, and the exercise from golf and her jogging routine kept her in good health. During this period, the twins were invited to their first teenage parties and each had their first experiences with alcohol and dating; for her part, Rue grew fond of the former and was not as enthusiastic about the latter. Things finally fell apart for the von Schroeders near the end of the twins’ first year of secondary school. After noticing discrepancies in their accounts for some time, Anton’s company finally found evidence that he had been embezzling from the business. While it was true that profits had increased and that the money the family had made off of their new tenants had been keeping them afloat, Anton had turned to skimming off of company funds so that they could have a financial cushion and would not have to give up any of the extra luxuries that they were used to. Anton was arrested, pled guilty in court in the face of the amount of evidence stacked against him, and was sentenced to a minimum of five years in prison. Vanessa and the twins were devastated by Anton’s arrest and sentencing. After legal costs and the loss of Anton’s income for the family, they had to let most of their home staff go, and the family’s lawyer also advised Vanessa that she should consider selling some possessions, which she eventually gave into with much reluctance. Vanessa was also forced to seek work for the first time in her adult life; a friend of Anton’s named Matthias Richardson offered her a secretarial position at his title firm, with a slightly bolstered salary as a favor. Vanessa took the job and holds it to this day, but her performance is middling at best as she is still struggling to cope with the turn her life has taken. The family stayed afloat in the aftermath of Anton’s arrest thanks to Vanessa’s job, the rent collected from tenants, and cost-saving measures, but the emotional scars proved more damaging. Rue’s idolized image of her father was completely shattered, and she swung between denial and feelings of betrayal and anger towards him, an emotional dichotomy which she still struggles with. After a couple of painfully awkward family visits and letters, Rue stopped keeping contact with Anton and intends to not speak to him for the rest of his incarceration while she figures out where she is going with her life now and what sort of relationship she wants to have with her parents as an adult. Anton keeps up correspondence with both Vanessa and Rian, and he still sends letters to Rue as well, but she has not responded to them. She blames Vanessa in part for the actions that Anton took, believing her mother’s neediness and desire for a privileged lifestyle was part of what drove him to crime; Rue’s relationship with her mother has grown especially strained since the twins began suspecting that Vanessa and Matthias may be having an affair in Anton's absence. They have yet to have any concrete proof or to confront her over it, but Rue is convinced, and has been especially cold to Vanessa lately. Rian attempts to mediate between them when conflict does arise, but for the most part the von Schroeder women ignore each other when they can. The siblings’ relationship with each other is the only one which made it out of the past few years unscathed; Rian is still Rue’s prime confidant and a moderating influence on her when her behavior grows erratic. Over the last few years, Rue has developed a handful of coping mechanisms to deal with the sudden upending of her family life, not all of them healthy. She increasingly turns to alcohol as a form of self-medication, both at parties and at home. She moderates herself somewhat successfully in public, but will get completely drunk in the privacy of her room with increasing frequency, as she has easy access to her parents' stores of alcohol and little supervision from her mother. Heightened stress sometimes causes her to verbally lash out at others, but most often she tends to shut down and neglect her relationships and social interaction. She puts a lot of effort towards keeping herself presentable and put-together in public, and bottles up her negative feelings until she can melt down in private. She hates any disruption of her polished exterior or implications by others that things are going less than ideally in her life, especially comments about Anton’s fall from grace and the family’s financial state. Currently, a lot of Rue’s energy goes towards keeping her social life active to what she considers an acceptable degree. To underclassmen and those who do not know her well, she seems perfectly put-together, mature, and dependable. Her friends who know the real situation are concerned for her, but she brushes off their worries and pushing the point tends to set her off. She maintains her academic spot on the high end of average without much extra effort. She also still holds her place on the school golf team; while she is a skilled golfer and enjoys her accomplishments in it, she mainly keeps with the team to stay close to her friends. She makes pocket money by making minor fixes or upgrades to her classmates’ phones, personal computers, or other devices upon request, and by tutoring fellow students in math and science. Rue spends most of her free time at home either browsing the internet or jogging, both mainly solitarily. Though she has dated throughout her teenage years, Rue quickly found that boys rarely interested her for long. In her few short relationships, she would go through the motions of being a dutiful girlfriend before finding some excuse to break it off once she was sure that she was not satisfied. Her first sexual experience, had with her most recent boyfriend, was underwhelming and uncomfortable, and she has not sought out another relationship since ending that one. Despite her certainty that she is not interested in boys, Rue has not given much thought to the obvious conclusion that she might be gay. She has experienced some attraction to other girls, but has never felt comfortable when on the receiving end of attention from them; rather than exerting the effort of figuring out whether her discomfort is because she isn’t really attracted to girls either or if it is just ingrained in her not to respond positively, Rue prefers to focus on things that have nothing to do with potential romance. After completing school at Saint Editha, Rue plans to attend the University of Nottingham to pursue a degree in computer engineering. She has also been looking into freelance programming and tutoring jobs to bolster her personal income. Rue is determined to make something of herself on her own merits, feeling that her parents have proven themselves unreliable and wishing to prove herself more capable than they were. She and Rian are as close as ever, despite minor friction between them over things like Rue's refusal to return Anton's correspondence, Rian's concerns over Rue's drinking, and their soon-to-be separation as Rian plans to stay in Bellington and work at Matthias's firm alongside their mother for a year or two following graduation. Advantages: Rue is physically fit and has the advantage of size over some of her classmates, which could aid her in a direct fight. She is decently popular and has a reputation for being trustworthy and mature, which could win her allies. She is very smart when she applies herself and has a measure of natural cunning. Disadvantages: Rue is very neurotic, and unexpected stress causes her to temporarily shut down or to lash out. She bottles up negative emotions and has few healthy outlets for releasing them. Her brother, a major source of emotional stability, will not be present during the game. She has a mild dependence on alcohol for calming her nerves and is more likely to be irritable and nervous without it. Designated Number: Female Student #2 --- Designated Weapon: FUBAR forcible entry tool Conclusion: She's got more cracks than a crazy pane, so she's either going loco or going to crumble under the pressure. Maybe she can go get smashed right guv? The above biography is as written by backslash. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made. Evaluations )]] Handled by: 'backslash '''Kills: '''None '''Killed By: 'Victoria Amaro 'Collected Weapons: '''FUBAR Forcible Entry Tool (assigned weapon) '''Allies: 'Nastya Zharkova 'Enemies: 'Victoria Amaro 'Mid-game Evaluation: ' 'Post-Game Evaluation: ' '''Memorable Quotes: Other/Trivia Threads Below is a list of threads containing Rue, in chronological order. Memories: *Only Got Bad Things On My Mind When I'm With You Sandbox: *Commie Newspapers Program V3: *Perestroika *And All Because Of A Snail Your Thoughts Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Rue von Schroeder. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here! Category:Program V3 Characters